Electronic devices, including portable electronic devices, have gained widespread use and may provide a variety of functions including, for example, telephonic, electronic messaging and other personal information manager (PIM) application functions. Portable electronic devices include, for example, several types of mobile stations such as simple cellular telephones, smart phones, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptop computers with wireless 802.11 or Bluetooth capabilities.
Portable electronic devices such as PDAs or smart telephones are generally intended for handheld use and ease of portability. Smaller devices are generally desirable for portability. A touch-sensitive display, also known as a touchscreen display, is particularly useful on handheld devices, which are small and have limited space for user input and output. The information displayed on the touch-sensitive displays may be modified based on the functions and operations being performed.
Portable electronic devices have also included dedicated keyboards or keypads comprising clickable buttons for providing user input. Such physical keyboards provide a tactile feedback that is not always possible in touch-sensitive displays. Given the limited size of portable electronic devices, there is often a compromise between the amount of space on the device available for physical buttons and the amount of space available for a touch-sensitive device.
Improvements in devices with touch-sensitive displays and keyboards are desirable.